


20 Hand

by devera



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Alternate Universe - Yakuza, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 18:15:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1788487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devera/pseuds/devera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hiroshi gets offered a job. Whether he's the right man for it or not still remains to be seen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	20 Hand

It was a traditional Japanese home, bland and quiet, like a museum. As far as Hiroshi had noticed when he'd been asked to come here – and “ask” was putting it mildly; he’d been invited in a way that really did not leave a great deal of room for polite refusal - and been shown through, the staff seemed few and went about their business unobtrusively.

He waited for ten minutes, kneeling on the mats in an equally bland and quiet room off the west corridor. It overlooked a large pond, and there was a dozen or so healthy-looking carp swimming in the calm waters next to the deck. On the other side of the pond, blue iris edged the water line. Beyond, carefully arranged trees obstructed the fence and, in the distance, the Kamakura skyline. If not for the glint of concrete and glass making itself seen now and then as the larger trees swayed in the afternoon breeze, and the faint sounds of traffic coming from the freeways, he could have believed himself somewhere out in the country.

It would have been a convenient lie. He had considered leaving town after what he’d done, but then again, running had seemed like too much trouble. Besides, where would he have gone? So he had waited for someone to come. Surprisingly, no one had, not the next day, or the next, or the next. Eventually, a month had gone by. His wounds had healed, and he was still alive, and there had been no retaliation whatsoever.

Until now. He wondered what connection the Shinagawa Group had to those he’d associated with previously. He wondered whether, if one intended on killing someone in retaliation for something they had done, would they make them wait in a clearly private and personal room beforehand?

He stared out at the pond and tried to make the answer to that question mean something to him, but he was still working on caring when the screen behind him slid softly across and someone stepped into the room.

Hiroshi turned, expecting the last thing he saw to be the glint of a blade swinging for his neck - a fitting way to go - or perhaps the barrel of a gun pointing at him, but the only thing he found himself facing was a vaguely familiar young man about Hiroshi's age, dressed in casual, somewhat fashionable clothes, his startlingly red hair pinned back from his face almost like a woman’s. There was nothing else about him that was womanly, however. He was long and lithe and limber looking, hard edged and spare, but his handsome face seemed somehow kind, honest. His features were generous, perhaps overly so. Sensual, Hiroshi decided. The photos he had seen hardly did the man any credit.

“So, you’re him,” the young man said after a moment of staring back.

“Shinagawa-san,” Hiroshi said, shifting to bow in the man's direction, forehead touching the mats beneath him. It wasn’t hard to put it together. After all, the youngest son of the Shinigawa family was often in the media, usually in relation to club parties and less than decent behaviour, and it was very difficult to mistake that hair. Rumour was it was natural. Hiroshi hadn't really believed that when he'd heard it, but seeing it, he wasn't sure a salon could have ever achieved that sort of effect. And of course, if nothing else, the distinctive scars down the man's cheek were like a personal seal. Rumours concerning _that_ had it someone had tried to kill him as a child while he still lived in the main household.

“Thanks for coming,” Genichi Shinigawa said, and then he laughed. “Yeah, all right, the guys probably didn’t leave you much choice, did they, Kurame-san? I say, _ask him if he wouldn't mind meeting me_ ; they hear, _I expect him here even if you have to king hit him and drag him over_." He stopped then and looked suspiciously at Hiroshi. "They didn't, did they?"

Hiroshi almost smiled at that. "No, they were very polite."

"Ah," Genichi intoned, as if Hiroshi's comment spoke volumes. "All right, I'll talk to them about that later." He made his way over to the cushion opposite Hiroshi as Hiroshi straightened up again. "Anyway, sorry to make you wait. I was supposed to be back a half hour ago, but the traffic was crap. Have they given you something to drink while you’ve been here?"

“Yes, thank you,” Hiroshi said, and Genichi nodded, taking his seat.

“Okay, well, let me get to the point then, I guess,” Genichi said, watching him. “I’d like to offer you a job.”

Hiroshi blinked. That was not what he’d been expecting.

“I was thinking, well, hoping, really," Genichi continued, a little blithely, and yet he watched Hiroshi closely while he talked. "That you'd be willing to take on a kind of personal assistant role. The last one I had… Well, it's a little complicated, but basically it involved one of my lady friends and hands in unwanted places. And, I don't know, he wasn't really all that good at keeping my schedule, really. That, uh, can be a little challenging sometimes?"

"I… see," Hiroshi said, because he couldn't think of anything else. His mind was still blank from the unexpectedness of Genichi's proposal.

"Also," Genichi added carefully, "I'd like you to look after my personal security."

Hiroshi twitched at that, and Genichi quite obviously did not make any expression whatsoever. He knew, Hiroshi realised, and then thought how ridiculous that would have sounded out loud; everyone knew, or at least anyone associated with the yakuza did.

"You have reason to be concerned for your safety?" he enquired in what he hoped was a neutral voice.

Genichi looked at him steadily. "I'm a Shinagawa," he said as if that was an answer in itself, and considering what Hiroshi knew of the family, it perhaps was. "I'm no player, not really, but there are enough reasons for enough people to want me out of the way. I want someone around that I can trust to protect me. And you, you're good at that."

This was _definitely_ not what Hiroshi had been expecting, and he didn't really know what to address first; that Genichi probably _couldn't_ trust him, or that he was mistaken in thinking he could _protect_ him.

“I… was,” he admitted slowly.

"Past tense," Genichi observed. "Meaning, you've retired?"

The concept of retirement had never really entered Hiroshi's mind, except in more permanent terms.

"Look," Genichi sighed. "I know you need a job, Kurame-san, and I need someone like you in my service. I think you’ll find it's a good offer. Full accommodation here on the property, time off to do with what you will, all meals provided and a generous remuneration and health insurance package. I've got a contract drafted up that you can collect on your way out, and you can have however long you want to think about it. But I _would_ like you to think about it.”

“I-“ Hiroshi tried again, and he couldn’t possibly have been more astonished if Genichi had told him he was nominating him for a Nobel Peace Prize. “Forgive me, Shinagawa-san-"

"Genichi," Genichi corrected with a small frown.

"Genichi-san, then," Hiroshi allowed, and Genichi nodded. "I do beg your pardon, but you _are_ aware of what I did, aren’t you? The reason why I am, as you correctly conclude, currently unemployed?”

Genichi cocked his head to one side and gave him a level look. “Well,” he said. “I don’t tend to pay attention to rumours, Kurame-san. And as far as I understand it, that’s all they are.”

“And yet despite these rumours, you’re offering me a position. As your bodyguard.”

Genichi grinned, suddenly and rakishly. “Pretty much,” he agreed cheerfully, and in that second, Hiroshi could understand every scandalous thing the entertainment papers had ever said about him.

Perhaps he should have asked why. Genichi could have employed practically anyone, but instead he was proposing to hire someone little better than a criminal, even amongst criminals. Hiroshi didn’t ask, though, because somehow it didn't seem to matter. Staring at that wide, roguish smile, Hiroshi felt like he already knew his answer, like it had already been determined long before they had even met.

“I’ll bring you nothing but trouble,” he felt duty-bound to point out finally, perhaps a last ditch attempt to dissuade either one of them, but if so, it was a weak one. Genichi just smiled a little more, sensing victory.

“That’s ok, Hiro-san,” he said smoothly. “I know a little bit about trouble. So is that a yes?”

“Yes,” Hiroshi found himself saying and that apparently was all the interview he was going to get.

++++

Hiroshi arrived at the house two days later with one duffel bag and was shown to a very nice room in the west wing near where he’d been interviewed. By the warm, intimate feel of the place, he suspected this side of the estate housed Genichi’s personal rooms. It would make sense to put one’s bodyguard close by.

His tasks, he soon discovered, were few and simple – know where Genichi was every moment of the day and accompany him whenever he left the estate – and Genichi didn’t make it difficult for him. A copy of his itinerary was delivered to his email each morning, a fact that came as a relief until Hiroshi began to learn that Genichi rarely observed it. After that, Hiroshi just filtered it out of his inbox automatically and went with his instincts. It was far more effective, a fact that seemed to surprise Genichi but not actively displease him. Hiroshi couldn’t understand how he had managed previously, but when he started appearing to collect him, Genichi would just smile at him and make his excuses to whatever company he was keeping and get up and follow Hiroshi wherever he was supposed to go. Before another month was out, Hiroshi's duties erred on the side of personal secretary more than bodyguard, and Genichi seemed to either not notice how thoroughly Hiroshi was undertaking the role, or not mind.

In that capacity, Hiroshi was well aware of when Genichi entertained guests on the estate. He in fact made it a point to know as much about them as possible - something more suited to his role as bodyguard than secretary. Often it was girls – relatively harmless and of little note, socialites mostly, the occasional hostess, and on one notable occasion the most exquisite maiko Hiroshi had ever seen. Hiroshi did not see what Genichi did with them; presumably what any young, handsome and healthy man did with a beautiful woman. They never stayed, though. Hiroshi saw them in, and escorted them out later, to their waiting vehicles.

Once he inadvertently happened upon Genichi in the midst of his goodbyes, when Genichi was still quite naked. Perhaps when Genichi noticed him finally he would have assumed Hiroshi had politely averted his gaze as soon as he had opened the door, but that was not entirely true. Hiroshi had intended to, certainly, but across the bare, muscular expanse of Genichi's shoulders and flowing down the graceful sweep of his spine to the toned muscles of his backside there was nothing but water. That was what Hiroshi saw in those few seconds as he stared - violent seas and calm lakes and playful little brooks and raging rivers, all rendered in a precise, detailed hand, like a Hokusai. Amidst the waves and pools, the fleeting shapes of half-hidden, water-bound creatures frolicked like tortured spirits.

It was like nothing he had ever seen before, nothing like a yakuza tattoo he had ever seen, and in those few moments before he did avert his gaze, before Genichi and his visitor realised he was there, Hiroshi was gripped by the strangest sensation, like he was drowning, like the air in his lungs was a kind of hunger under his skin, hot and starved and unfulfilled.

Later that night, when he found his bed and closed his eyes, he imagined running his hands over those waters, imagined the flesh and muscle undulating beneath them, imagined pressing his mouth against them and drinking in the sounds of Genichi's sighs like the sweet wash of rain.

++++

Women weren't Genichi's only visitors of course. Sometimes it was business. Such visitors generally tended towards the not entirely legitimate side of society and required a great deal more investigative power than Hiroshi really had at his disposal. That was fine. Hiroshi had always found that it was easiest to judge the intentions of such men by watching them, and Hiroshi sat in on those meetings, staying in the background, adopting a neutral, hopefully bored demeanour, and watched intently. The legality of whatever dealings Genichi's family were involved in did not concern him; after all, considering what he’d done that would have been a hypocrisy of a rare order. But the presence of armed men of unknown motivation and skill had bearing on Genichi’s safety and that was Hiroshi’s job. He preferred in those instances to be close, in case anything happened.

The day Kenousuke Miura came calling Hiroshi's preferences were however ignored. Miura was obviously high ranking yakuza, a boss’ son most likely, although Hiroshi had not been told he was coming. It seemed to be an informal visit, as if he and Genichi were friends and he was just dropping by, except Genichi had never mentioned him and Miura had arrived with an ostentatious show of force, as if he did not trust him.

And then, more unusual still, Genichi waved Hiroshi away and retreated with his guest towards the East wing, where he only ever took his more intimate acquaintances. Hiroshi stared after them, surprised, and then realised he was standing there with his mouth open and Miura's hired thugs were staring at him. When he turned to look at one of them, he caught the trail end of an ugly smirk that he did not like.

But Hiroshi hadn't been here that long, relatively speaking. Perhaps this was usual for Miura when he visited. Perhaps he had been away and Genichi hadn't thought to mention him or his visit, or it had in fact been spontaneous. Perhaps Miura's muscle always smiled like that, or - and there was a very slim possibility of this - they knew who Hiroshi was. The idea made him want to run, but he made himself walk in calm, measured steps back into the house and tried to think nothing further of it.

He was in his office, half way through reading the week’s security staff roster when he realised that he couldn’t seem to forget the way Genichi's face had looked, just before he'd turned away. Miura had put a proprietorialhand on the small of Genichi's back as they had stepped away and Genichi, just for a split second, had made an expression of grim distaste. Hiroshi had not misinterpreted it.

He was making his way to Genichi’s rooms before he had even really made the decision. It was easy enough to rationalise. He was responsible for Genichi’s safety and there was something about Miura, about his friendliness, the way he had looked at Genichi, the way he had touched him and the arrogant dismissal he gave his men, that unsettled Hiroshi somewhere in the pit of his stomach, a sick, fluttering feeling like a snake writhing in his gut. He wouldn’t disturb them, of course; he just wanted to reassure himself that he was wrong. It had been known to happen.

There was a light on in Genichi's rooms, but when Hiroshi stopped at the door to listen, there was no noise from within. Genichi must have taken his visitor elsewhere, perhaps the garden. He began to turn away again.

And then he heard a noise, muffled, someone's voice - Genichi's, he realised – gasping. More, he recognised the emotive quality in it, and all of a sudden he understood what it was he had seen in Miura towards Genichi. They were-

Well, that was none of his business, of course, and yet Hiroshi couldn't quite make himself leave. Shameful perhaps, but the idea of Genichi engaged in the kinds of activities Hiroshi was of late imagining him in seemed to glue his feet to the floor. Genichi's women meant very little to him; that was more than obvious. Oh, he wasn't disrespectful, nor cruel. He was, as far as Hiroshi was aware, a perfect gentleman. But he hardly ever saw the same woman twice, and did not talk about them after they had gone.

And because they seemed to mean so little to Genichi, Hiroshi did not think about them either. Neither did he think about Genichi with them. When he allowed himself to think about Genichi at all it was always a little abstract: the nape of Genichi's neck under a tangle of red hair; his shoulders; the small of his back; his muscles and his skin and that tattoo under Hiroshi's hands; occasionally, guiltily, furtively, his cock. Never his face, nor the particular way his smiles skewed his mouth, never his expression as Hiroshi touched him. That would have been too intimate, and Hiroshi was not quite that courageous.

Courage or lack thereof, however, was apparently not enough of an excuse for him to feel he did not have a right of some kind, because standing at Genichi's door while Genichi and Miura were inside, pleasuring each other, Hiroshi could suddenly name the snake snapping and twisting silkily in his guts: jealousy.

The discovery rocked him back on his heels a little, and the shock was enough to make him realise the extent of his trespass. If he wanted to retain his position in this household that he'd begun to actually like, he would walk away and act as if he'd never heard a thing, never felt a thing. Genichi was his employer, perhaps even something on the way to being his friend. It was the only right thing to do.

He was in the process of turning when he heard it - the unmistakable sound of a fist connecting with flesh. And then again. Genichi’s part grunt, part gasp of pain was all but lost beneath it.

Hiroshi didn’t think beyond that sound, just turned back around and pulled open the screen, all in one motion. The tableau he had imagined, that he had been jealously picturing, was not the reality that confronted him when he did. Genichi was face down on the low table in the centre of the room, Miura pressed against his back, struggling to hold him down. Genichi’s robe was half off, Miura’s hips pressed close against Genichi’s still clothed backside, and the flash of Genichi's thigh under one of Miura's hands was possibly more shocking than Hiroshi could even have dreamed.

Genichi's eyes met Hiroshi's over the hard press of Miura's other hand over his mouth and he made an alarmed, desperate noise. It was enough to break Hiroshi's moment of paralysis and drive him across the room. Without stopping to think, he bent down, put his hand on the back of Miura’s neck, shoved him to the side of Genichi’s body and then neatly drove Mirua’s head into the table top. Good, solid wood; it didn't crack, so perhaps that sound had been Miura's nose. Hiroshi didn't let it concern him. He reached for Genichi’s arm and hauled him up to his feet before Miura could even hit the floor.

There was blood on Genichi’s mouth, a bruise forming on his cheek, and his normally smooth hair was in disarray, but he looked surprised more than anything else.

“I apologise,” Hiroshi told him calmly, and then let him go and stepped back over to Miura, reached down, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and hauled him to his feet. His face was bloody when he struggled to look dazedly at Hiroshi. Hiroshi felt a minor satisfaction at the sight, re-secured his grip and then began dragging him across the tatami mats and out the door onto the landing.

“What the-“ Miura began, voice nasal and wet. “Let me the fuck go! Do you know who you’re fucking with?!”

Hiroshi continued to accompany him down the landing, around the corner of the wing, down onto the front concourse and across the grounds and towards his car. Miura’s men were still loitering carelessly around Miura's convoy, and stared at them dumbly as they appeared. It confirmed to Hiroshi what he'd already surmised, that Miura's men were really just for show. Hiroshi would never have tolerated such a lackadaisical attitude in men working with him. Had it been one of Miura's men dragging _Genichi_ across the gravel, his face all bloody, Hiroshi would have shot him already, not just stood there looking surprised.

He marked their positions as he stepped onto the drive, and then refocused on Miura. When Miura began struggling excessively, Hiroshi grabbed him by the arm and twisted it behind his back. He was not gentle about it. Miura howled.

“You _fuck_! You’re _dead_! You can’t do this to me!”

“Your visit with Genichi-san has concluded,” Hiroshi informed him calmly. “I suggest that if you ever decide to return, you remember your manners towards your host, my employer and the master of this household.” He shoved him towards his vehicle and then glanced at his closest man. “Take your boss and go,” he said. “And finish pulling that gun and you’ll be dead before the safety is off. Which would be unfortunate because the groundskeeper really hates to have to keep cleaning up the blood.”

They looked like they didn’t know whether he was joking or not.

“If I come back and find him still here, you’ll be looking for new employment in the morning classifieds. Please let yourselves out.” He didn’t mean that last part, of course, since Genichi’s own security staff had appeared. They didn't look alarmed. In fact, Hiroshi was pleased to see they looked rather how he felt - like they would take quite a great deal of pleasure in hurting someone, preferably Miura, given half the chance. He felt confident that he could leave them to see to the promptness of their visitor’s departure. He turned away and walked back to the house.

When he reached Genichi’s room, he found him almost where he’d left him, except Genichi's robe was back in order and he was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and what looked to be a half tumbler of whiskey in his hand, which was shaking. Hiroshi didn’t know whether it was from fear or rage, and guessed that it was probably a little of both. He stepped back out of the room, walked down the hall to the bathroom and retrieved a bowl full of warm water, some antiseptic, a few cotton balls and a clean hand towel, and then he returned.

Genichi didn’t speak while Hiroshi set himself up next to him, poured a small amount of antiseptic into the bowl, dipped a cotton ball and squeezed it out, then brought his free hand up to gently grip Genichi’s chin and turn his face towards him. The bruise on his cheek was deep, would need a compress, and there was another bruise purpling on the side of his mouth. His split lip was puffy and sore looking, but he didn't flinch as Hiroshi dabbed at the wound gently.

“I could have managed,” Genichi said after a moment, a little mulishly. Hiroshi nodded and dipped the cotton ball back into the dilute.

“I know,” he told him softly. “I did apologise.”

Genichi huffed a little laugh. “Yeah, you did.”

“That was for manhandling you,” Hiroshi added. “Not for the rest.”

“Figured that one out for myself,” Genichi remarked. “He wasn’t doing any harm.”

Even if Genichi’s tone hadn’t been all wrong, Hiroshi could still see the look on Genichi’s face when he’d pulled open that door. There had been anger there, defiance, but fear too, stark and helpless. Hiroshi didn't actually think Genichi was incapable of fighting another man off, so there was something else happening here.

"Apologies," he said calmly, "but your definition of harm and mine do not appear to be the same."

"I guess not," Genichi agreed. His tone made Hiroshi look at him sharply. "Look, you'll find out anyway, now. He's not the first guy I've ever-"

Hiroshi frowned. "Genichi-san, whether you like men as well as women is not the same as being _forced_."

Genichi was silent for a suspiciously long time, during which Hiroshi realised that perhaps that was exactly what Genichi thought, and the idea made him furious all over again.

"It's complicated, Hiroshi," Genichi tried softly. "I don't have a choice in these-"

“No. That's why they call it _rape_ ," Hiroshi said harshly, and perhaps he was gripping Genichi’s chin a little too tightly, but he couldn’t seem to make himself let go. “My sister was raped. There were- a number of them. Surprisingly, she survived the actual attack. She only killed herself afterward. The note she left said she was pregnant and that she couldn't live with it."

"Hiroshi..." Genichi began, reaching up to wrap his fingers around Hiroshi's wrist and pry his grip off.

"No," Hiroshi said again, interrupting with a hard shake of his head whatever else Genichi had been about to say but allowing him to pull his hand away. "You should know. I should have told you in the interview. You see, she never went to the police at the time, so there was no evidence to convict anyone with. And when she committed suicide, that’s what _I_ couldn't live with. So I went looking for the men responsible. It didn't take all that long, and when I found them, I killed them. And then I killed the men who stood back and let it happen. And then I killed the men who covered it up.”

"Jesus Christ," Genichi said softly, his voice pained.

Hiroshi smiled at him. It probably didn’t look quite right; it certainly didn’t feel it.

“Of course, they were all members of the Okino Group, weren’t they. There was no point in stopping there.”

“Fuck,” Genichi breathed, and dropped his hand. The loss of contact made Hiroshi soften his hold, until he was palming the side of Genichi’s jaw, his thumb against the still wet split on his lip and the tight flesh of the bruise developing.

"So, you see," Hiroshi told him carefully, staring at that bruise, at Genichi’s mouth, and his hand was trembling but he couldn’t seem to make it stop. "I will not stand by and let anyone, anyone at all-" But he couldn’t continue.

" _Hiroshi_ ," Genichi said again, urgently. "It's not like that. It's not."

“No?” Hiroshi said, swallowing against something hard lodged deep in his throat. He watched as his hand slid from Genichi's face to his throat; he watched as it squeezed. “Then what was it like? Do you like to be hurt, Genichi-san? Do you find pain arousing?”

“No,” Genichi said. His muscles worked against Hiroshi's grip but his eyes were steady on Hiroshi's face, like he already knew Hiroshi would never hurt him. He didn't understand however that Hiroshi would have, if he'd said yes, if that was what he wanted.

“Then that's an end to it,” Hiroshi told him simply and let go. “Or you can fire me.”

Genichi frowned. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “You’re the only… the only bodyguard I’ve ever had who can actually get Chikako out of the house without fuss. And besides, I like having you around.”

It sounded like a confession; not shameful, but a secret, something that Hiroshi hadn't been meant to know. Hiroshi smiled. This time he was fairly sure it was sitting correctly on his face.

“And I like being around,” he said after a moment, a little surprised at how easily it had come out. “Now, let me see your face. Perhaps if we get some ice on this, it won’t bruise quite so badly.”

++++

Genichi went out two days later - a somewhat disreputable tea house in Chinatown - to meet someone. He'd told Hiroshi nothing about the meeting, but he didn't seem to mind when Hiroshi followed him through the chiming front door of the shop.

The place was tired looking and deserted. The advertising posters on the wall were at least a decade old, and the Formica tables had seen far better days, as had the vinyl covered booths by the faded curtained windows, but the specials board, which proclaimed "latest, greatest flavours" and "Genuine English Breakfast available here" were a riot of coloured chalk and little cartoon animals Hiroshi recognised from a recent television show. There was a kid behind the bar, pouring tea like they were cocktails and listening to music on fluorescent green headphones. There were three other people in the shop. None of them looked much like they knew each other.

Genichi went unerringly towards a man sitting at the back of the shop reading a paper. He had ragged blonde hair - not bleached but genuinely blonde - and he was dressed in what Hiroshi recognised to be a plain grey _changpao_. His spectacles, by contrast, were bright purple, perched on the end of his nose as he read. There was a tray in front of him with three cups and a pot, and Hiroshi caught a whiff of fresh _hojicha_ and jasmine as Genichi stopped in front of the table.

"Hey, Shichiro," Genichi greeted the man, grinning. "What's news?"

The man, Shichiro, rustled his paper for a few moments, and then looked up as if the greeting hadn't even occurred.

"Oh," he said flatly, as if he wasn't in fact waiting for them. "It's you. Well, I suppose you'd better sit down then. Your friend too. You know I hate it when you loom."

He was actually older than he had appeared from the other side of the room. Hiroshi took a seat after Genichi and peered across the table at him, but he was reading his paper again.

"Someone's improved your looks recently," Shichiro observed gruffly without looking at either of them. "And your new friend looks like he'd break my arm if I so much as even raise my voice at you." It wasn't really a question. "What the fuck have you done this time?"

Genichi just grinned and eased back in his chair. The plastic creaked.

"Oh you know, the usual," he said lightly. "Your ape going to pour us a drink so we can talk, or what?"

"I'm told you not to call him that," Shichiro said irritably, but folded his paper and put it down on the table. Suddenly, without Hiroshi having noticed, the kid from behind the bar was at his side, leaning over the table to pick up the pot, turn over the cups in three neat little moves, and pour their tea. He didn't seem like much of an ape to Hiroshi.

"Thanks, Genta," Genichi said, smiling up at the kid. The boy nodded, and then kept nodding, and Hiroshi realised he was actually nodding along to the music he was listening to and hadn't in fact been acknowledging Genichi at all. He finished what he was doing, put the pot back down to one side of the tray and then sauntered back over to the bar.

"So, I only see you when you're in the shit," Shichiro said, reaching for his tea with one hand while carefully folding up the long loose sleeve of his shirt with the other. "What do you want?"

"Not me, this time," Genichi said, and suddenly Shichiro's eyes were locked on Hiroshi. For a second it was like all the sound went out of the world. Shichiro's eyes were-

Hiroshi blinked as Shichiro looked away again, eyes dropping back to his tea, and couldn't recall what colour they'd been. Blue he thought, but with some measure of doubt. He reached for his own tea, for something to do, and found that his hand was shaking just the tiniest amount.

"I see," Shichiro said, carefully neutral. "That'll cost you."

"Yeah, I figured," Genichi agreed easily, and sipped at his own tea. "Let me know."

Shichiro grunted. "I'll let you know."

"Cool," Genichi said, and the three of them then sat there and quietly drank their tea. It was, to Hiroshi's surprise, extraordinarily nice tea.

"Well," Genichi said, and put his empty cup down on the table with a careful click. "Guess it's time for us to go then."

Hiroshi rose from his seat.

"I'll get the car," he told him.

It was somehow a relief to leave the shop. The whole brief meeting had been more than a little odd, and Hiroshi wasn't entirely sure he liked the way Shichiro looked at him. He walked around the corner and down the street to the alley where he'd parked Genichi's car, behind the building. It was a quiet afternoon, sunny. There was no one around. He reached the car, unlocked it, opened the driver's side door, and then stopped and straightened again, because there hadn't been anyone around - a moment ago. Now there were three men standing at the corner to the alley.

Hiroshi closed the car door. He didn't have to look behind him to know that there were men at the other end of the short street too.

His first thought was that they were Okino men, but then he realised that was likely impossible since he had killed almost all of them. It didn't matter who they were, though, really. They were approaching him and they were armed, and they obviously meant him harm.

He didn't think he looked scared - he wasn't, so he was fairly sure he didn't look it - but one of them laughed anyway, and flipped out a butterfly knife, spinning it casually in his hand as he sauntered closer.

"Hey," he said. "Got a minute?"

Hiroshi didn't answer, just ducked. The attack from behind, intended to be a surprise, missed, the tyre iron that had been on course to catch him in the side of the head slipped past above and came down on the roof of the car, the thug on the issuing end staggering forward with his own momentum. Hiroshi surged back up and brought his elbow around, connecting with his jaw, snapping his head back. Hiroshi then used his other arm to slam his attacker into the edge of the car roof. He heard a wet crunch and the man tipped lifeless to the ground.

It took the others a critical moment of surprise at this action, but by then Hiroshi was moving, rushing the men in front of him. He never reached them. There was a loud, joyful cry and a blur of movement that resolved itself into the teen from the tea house sliding like a break-dancer across the hood of the car and careening with violent accuracy into Hiroshi's other attackers. One of them went down in a heap with the boy's army issue boots to his face, and by the time he was hitting the ground the kid was on his feet. Hiroshi started to step forward - after all, he was hardly more than a child - but then realised child or not, he didn't need Hiroshi's help. He was deflecting blows from two sides like the actions were an afterthought, and his counters seemed not so much desperate fight as gleeful play.

Hiroshi straightened, and then after a few moments, folded his arms and leaned against the side of vehicle.

"Genta, wasn't it?" he ventured after a long moment, loudly enough to be heard over the sounds of grunts and swearing and fists connecting with flesh. "I think that's perhaps enough."

The boy glanced over his shoulder in mild surprise, and then grinned at Hiroshi. Hiroshi blinked and the two other men were suddenly lying on the ground, close enough to out cold as to make very little difference.

Genta stood for a moment, and Hiroshi saw his shoulders relax slowly, deliberately. He turned.

"Shi-chan sent me to help," the kid said. He wasn't even out of breath. "But you coulda handled it, I think."

Hiroshi glanced down at the three men at the boy's feet. The one he'd kicked actually had an imprint of his boot sole on his cheek.

"Far be it from me to spoil your apparent fun," he observed dryly.

The kid grinned like he completely hadn't heard the mild disapproval in Hiroshi's voice.

"Sorry." He didn't look very. "But Shi-chan didn't want to have to get rid of the bodies so he sent me out to take care of it. He's not going to be happy about that." Genta raised his eyebrows in the direction of the man at Hiroshi's feet. "You really don't fuck about, do you."

It wasn't a question, and Hiroshi was almost offended, except that it was the truth. There was really no point in arguing that he wouldn't have killed them all.

"You're pretty good," Genta continued, stepping over one of the dazed men. "Maybe we could spar some time? I haven't had a decent partner since we left Xian. It really sucks."

Remembering the fluid, unconscious way the boy blocked and countered, Hiroshi suspected that this fight hadn't even been close to decent for him.

"I'm afraid I'm only good for one thing," he said. "I doubt I'd prove much better."

The kid looked a little disappointed. "Yeah, I s'pose. Well, you should probably get going before Gen-san comes looking for you."

"Yes," Hiroshi agreed and went back to the car and pushed the thug with the broken nose out of the way with his foot. He opened the car door, but paused. "Can I ask," he began. "What is it that Shichiro-san does, exactly?"

Genta looked surprised for a second. "Gen-san didn't tell you?"

"No."

"Oh. Well," the boy grinned. "He makes things happen. Sometimes its good things, and sometimes it’s not. Guess it depends on your point of view."

"I...see," Hiroshi said, although he didn't, exactly. "Is he your father?"

Genta blinked. And then he laughed.

"No. No _way_!" he laughed. "Ha. I'll have to tell him you said that. It'll give him something to focus on while I deal with this."

Hiroshi blinked, trying to parse his meaning, but Genta was bending down to hook his hands under one of the corpse's arms, and after a short breath of effort the body was up and over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

"See you 'round, Kurame-san," he said cheerfully and then he was gone, back through the door he'd obviously come out of. Hiroshi looked around the alley once more, and then got in the car, closed the door, turned the engine on and carefully drove around the mostly unconscious bodies. When he got out onto the street, Genichi was standing in front of the tea shop.

"What?" Genichi said as he opened the car door and slid into the back seat. "Wouldn't it start or something? I only bought the damn thing last year."

"No, it wasn't the car," Hiroshi said, and signalled his way into the traffic. "It was my fault. I apologise for taking so long."

In the rear-view mirror he could see Genichi looking at him curiously.

"Yeah, no problem," he said after a moment. "Let's go home, yeah?"

"Yes, Sir," Hiroshi agreed.

+++++

When they pulled up in the driveway in front of the house, Genichi's head housekeeper, a somewhat diminutive old woman Genichi referred to as Mama Bo, was standing on the steps. Her face was severe, mouth turned down and eyes wet looking. When Genichi saw her, Hiroshi heard him suck in a breath. He got out of the car very slowly. Hiroshi got out of the car and followed.

"She wants to see me, doesn't she," Genichi said, and Mama Bo nodded just once, her hands clenched together as if she was afraid of what they would do if she let them.

Genichi stood for a long moment. Hiroshi could see his face in profile, but it was utterly blank. There was no clue to his thoughts in his expression.

"I guess I'll go get ready then," he said finally.

Hiroshi followed him when he went into the house. He followed him all the way to his rooms, and he stood inside the door as Genichi crossed the room to where Mama Bo had already hung out his suit. Genichi stared at it for a moment, and then proceeded to strip out of the more casual clothes he'd gone down to Chinatown in.

"Genichi-san?" Hiroshi ventured after a few moments, torn between watching the play of Genichi's muscles under his tattoo as he reached for his dress shirt and wondering what on earth was going on.

"I have to go out again," Genichi said, stepping out of his jeans and reaching for the trousers that were hung in perfect, sharp folds on the clothes horse.

Hiroshi watched Genichi dress. It was like a snake shedding its skin in the opposite direction. With every piece of clothing he pulled on, he became less and less like himself, became further and further removed.

"To?" he enquired after a moment.

"Mother's." Genichi didn’t look at him, but his movements were mechanical, stiff, as if he was girding himself for war. "Akeno will drive me. You can stay here."

"No," Hiroshi replied calmly, as Genichi was shrugging into his jacket. "I don't believe I will."

Genichi glanced at him sharply then, but there must have been something in his face that made Genichi understand that his answer was not going to change.

"Fine," Genichi sighed. "Then help me with this fucking tie."

++++

The Shinagawa main residence made Genichi's estate look like a public park. It was an hour outside Kamakura, heading back toward Tokyo, nestled in the hills near the Third Pass, with a fairly plain gate and high white perimeter walls. Inside, however… Well, apart from the carefully crafted elegance of the grounds they drove through, and the sight of the enormous house that appeared to rise out of the hillside it was nestled in, the security surrounding the place would have not been out of place in a fortress.

"Did you grow up here?" Hiroshi asked, a little quietly, as he eased the car down the long, cherry tree-lined drive. They weren't in flower, of course, but the sight would have been nothing short of spectacular in season.

"For a while," Genichi replied faintly.

Hiroshi digested this piece of information silently. It didn't sound like Genichi missed it.

"It's very… austere," he remarked carefully, and in the rear view mirror he saw Genichi's gaze flicker towards him.

"Austere," he repeated.

"Yes," Hiroshi said. "I don't intend to be rude. It's very lovely, of course, but it's so…" He groped for a word. "… perfect. There's not a single thing out of place."

Genichi turned back towards the window. "That's the way Mother likes it."

Hiroshi wanted to ask him more, but they had finally reached the end of the drive. There were four inscrutable security staff standing waiting for them. Hiroshi pulled up in front of them, and before he could get out and walk around to open Genichi's door, one of them stepped forward and did it for him.

Genichi began to climb out, and then paused and stared at Hiroshi in the mirror, his expression unreadable, for what seemed like a very long time.

“Look,” he said finally, lowly. “Whatever happens, I need you not to do anything, okay?”

Hiroshi stared back. He wanted to turn and face him, because there was something wrong, and he couldn't see what it was in that tiny sliver of glass.

“What do you mean, "whatever happens?"”

“This is an order, Hiroshi. Promise me.”

There wasn’t anything to do but agree.

"All right," he said softly, and Genichi seemed to relax for a moment, as if he was relieved, before straightening up again and squaring his shoulders.

“Okay,” he said. “Well, I guess we should just go get this over with, then.” He climbed out of the back seat, and Hiroshi hurried to follow.

++++

He followed Genichi, flanked by the four men, up and into the entryway, where they dutifully removed their shoes and left them in neat little arrangements by the wall before walking in socked feet into the house. From the outside the residence had looked quite traditional, but inside, Hiroshi was surprised to find a thoroughly modern interpretation of the Japanese aesthetic, sparse and minimalist. The ceiling above, as he passed through the entryway and into an internal courtyard, was a series of shutters that had been turned to allow light to slant across the floor in warm stripes, neatly illuminating the single miniature maple that grew in the centre of the courtyard's sunken garden.

On the other side of the garden were what appeared to be equally modern renderings of the traditional Azuchi-Momoyama period sliding doors, white on white, a blinding mural that Hiroshi was only able to glimpse before two of the men accompanying them stepped forward and slid them open.

Beyond these doors was a large reception hall, laid with tatami mats and decorated in a much more accurately traditional style, with scrolls hanging opposite each other at intervals along the approach. It of course had the intended effect of focusing the visitor's attention on one thing and one thing only – the woman at the far end draped with understated drama across an antique _zaisa,_ Genichi's mother, the matriarch of the Shinagawa family, Keiko Shinagawa herself.

She was beautiful, after a fashion, but her cool, aloof beauty and the way she fixed Genichi alone with a thin lipped stare did nothing whatsoever for Hiroshi. Hiroshi kept his expression neutral and his steps even as they approached, but she did not once look at him as Genichi stopped two mats away and neatly and gracefully folded himself down to the floor to bow.

Hiroshi, aware that he knew nothing of the social expectations here, or even the family dynamic, followed suit.

"Greetings, Mother," Genichi said without much warmth, and lifted his head but not his eyes from the tatami. "You wanted to see me?"

Shinagawa was silent for a long moment, staring at Genichi. Genichi sat perfectly still and waited.

"Want," she said finally, slowly, her tone hard, "does not factor into it. You will explain yourself."

Genichi twitched just slightly, as if he'd almost gone to shake his head and then stopped himself.

"I can't," he said, and it did not sound as if he was confused about what she was referring to. "And so, you've called me here for nothing."

Hiroshi felt the room still at that. It wasn’t so much the coolness in his tone, he thought, but the actual words, as if no one dared ever talk to Lady Shinagawa like that, and Shinagawa’s face bore the proof. It had turned almost white in the space of a heartbeat.

"Nothing?" Shinagawa repeated, icily calm. "And I suppose you think it was nothing, the respect that my family lost, the agreements that were broken? The alliance I was brokering was critical to my family's continued well-being. It was not nothing. Have you forgotten what you are?”

"No, mother," Genichi said in response. "I apologise. My words were-"

“Apologise?” Shinagawa interrupted and her voice wasn’t cold any longer; it was transformed with anger- no, _fury_. Her face was alight with it. Her hands were curling like claws into the upholstered arms of her chair. “ _Apologise_?! Miura’s father was going to give us the _whole south district_! And you’re _apologising_?  I don’t want your apologies! All you had to do was give his son what he _wanted_ , and you couldn't even do that! What has transpired is your fault, you _useless piece of trash_!”

If there had been some kind of signal or cue, Hiroshi had missed it, because without warning the man directly to Genichi’s right stepped forward and delivered a sudden and vicious kick to Genichi’s side. Genichi grunted on the impact and curled himself further down into his bow but didn’t otherwise move. He didn’t object. He didn’t surge to his feet and hit the man back. He didn’t do anything, and like an idiot, Hiroshi sat there in open mouthed shock as the bodyguard did it again.

Twice, Hiroshi thought, but by God not a third time.

It was a split second calculation in his head – up, over Genichi’s back, grab the thug’s leg mid-kick, and dislocate his kneecap. Then he would take the man’s gun from his underarm holster as he fell and shoot the next man on his left, closest to Shinagawa, and then the man on the other side of the room. He would have long enough to do that. Perhaps the man standing behind him would be fast enough to react then, to perhaps shoot Hiroshi before Hiroshi could shoot him, or get to Shinagawa, but that was a risk Hiroshi was willing to take.

He tensed to move but before he could, a hand landed on his shoulder. He twitched at the touch, elbow automatically lifting to aim where the groin of someone standing behind him would be, only to have his arm caught and turned sharply. He tried to turn with it but agony raced unexpectedly through his shoulder and he knew instantly that if he tried any further, he'd dislocate it.

He considered it, in that second when the guard kicked Genichi again, in the face this time, lifting him up and over so that protecting his head became the greater priority and he was forced to leave his middle unprotected. And then he was kicked again, and again. Gasping sounds were starting to escape his mouth, like he was struggling not to cry out, and Hiroshi couldn't- he couldn't sit here and let this-

"Don't," the guard pinning him warned him gruffly, and pushed him heavily down into the mat using his entire weight. The option to dislocate his shoulder to escape suddenly became completely moot; he couldn't move at all, and neither could he see what was happening. But he could hear it. "You'll only make it worse. Shut-up and sit still. It'll be over in a moment."

But it wasn’t a moment. It felt like an eternity, pinned there to the mats listening to the dull meaty thud of feet and fists hitting flesh, listening to Genichi's smothered sounds of pain as each strike landed. He shook with the need to stop it, straining against the weight holding him down despite the warning, despite his promise to Genichi outside. And then he heard Shinagawa's voice again, as if from a very great distance, and the sounds stopped, and someone close to him said, "Put him in the north storeroom," and Hiroshi thought if they touched Genichi again he would take all their hands off and feed them to the carp while they watched and-

Rough hands grabbed him, dragged him to his feet, and muscled him across the floor. He started to turn, started to drag against their weight, and looked down and saw Genichi. He was on his side, but he was staring at Hiroshi with the eye that wasn’t bloody and quickly swelling shut, and his look - alarmed and somehow pleading - stopped Hiroshi’s struggles as easily as if he had spoken.

He hadn't, Hiroshi realised as Shinagawa's men threw him into a store room and slammed the door shut, been pleading for Hiroshi's help; he had been pleading for his silence.

++++

Hiroshi tried the door, but only out of a sense of curiosity to see whether it really was as solid as it appeared. It was, and there were no windows either. If it was a store room, it was devoid of any stores, and it was becoming quickly apparent that if he was going to be forced to escape from this place with Genichi, he was going to have to do it the direct way. Direct, in his experience, was also messy. But then he remembered how Genichi had looked in that moment when Hiroshi had been dragged away and remembered also that messy was, similarly in his experience, intensely satisfying.

It was perhaps three hours before he heard the door unlock again. He remained where he was, sitting against the wall opposite, and watched as it opened. The man who stood there, the one who had warned Hiroshi not to intervene and held him down while his fellow yakuza had beat Genichi, looked at him like he was a little surprised Hiroshi was still in there.

"Come with me," he said after a brief, assessing pause. Hiroshi didn’t move.

"Lady Shinagawa is in a meeting," he began again. "It’ll be bad for Gen if she sees him again. We need to get him out of here now, while we can."

Hiroshi stared at him a moment longer and then got smoothly to his feet and dusted himself off.

"You expect me to believe you want to help?" he said, not bothering to sound anything other than hostile.

The man stepped well back as Hiroshi reached the doorway, and his hand was resting under his jacket lapel. A knife then, rather than a gun. Hiroshi calculated the arc of his swing and which way Hiroshi would have to move to get under it.

"Believe me," the man said, his expression dark with some emotion Hiroshi thought might have been bitterness, had he seen it on any other face. "I was doing you both a favour. You don’t have any idea."

 _Clearly_ , Hiroshi thought but didn't say. Instead he just followed where he was led, through the now quiet manor. He kept wondering if it was another trap, kept doubting that he’d find Genichi alive when he reached him, and he knew with a cold, distant certainty that he would not be able to accept it, the same way he had not been able to accept Miura’s actions yesterday. He hadn’t understood the consequences then, hadn’t quite frankly cared about them. He had assumed there would be some kind of retaliation by Miura's gang, as in the alley this morning. He had in fact gone so far to consider it might lead to some kind of lengthy hostilities, and he would have handled whatever eventuated in whatever way was necessary.

But he had never expected it to come from Genichi’s own _mother_. He had never expected Genichi to be a party to it, to seek to… _protect_ him from it. He would have come here without Hiroshi tonight, if Hiroshi hadn't insisted on accompanying him. He let this happen as if it was something he thought he _deserved_ , and the idea made Hiroshi feel sick to his stomach, because it wasn't. No, it was Hiroshi who had failed him.

He would remove himself from Genichi's employ immediately after he got him home, and there was nothing on this earth that would prevent him from getting him home.

It seemed like he was being led through the entire house, but when they finally came to a halt, it seemed to be in some kind of private wing, a feeling that was supported when Hiroshi stepped into the room he was shown in to. It was only a little like the austere neo-traditional rooms Hiroshi had already seen; there was a much more personal touch here. Inside the door, a long straight couch in dark leather pushed up against one wall, with a coffee table and magazines and books piled on top of it, and along the opposite wall, full length strips of mirror alternating with full length photographic prints in black and white of trees and skyscrapers all stretching, all reaching. Hiroshi walked past them towards the back of the room where a partition obscured what was obviously the bed, a futon laid on a standing base, framed by side tables with picture frames and a black analogue clock.

Hiroshi didn't pause to look around any further than that. There was only one thing he cared about in that room - Genichi lying there on the futon wrapped in a clean crisp robe, his hair brushed carefully and his eyes closed. Hiroshi stopped, because for a moment, a terrible, heart wrenching moment, he was convinced he was dead. He was so still, so pale, except for where he wasn't, and all Hiroshi could feel was a distant kind of rage, at himself, at Shinagawa, even at Genichi, because if he’d just _told_ him, Hiroshi would have never let him come here in the first place.

Then Genichi opened his eyes and rolled his head slowly on the pillow and looked at him. One of them was still swollen shut.

"Hiroshi," he sighed.

His voice pulled Hiroshi to him like gravity.

"Sir, are you- I mean-"

"I'm fine," Genichi assured, but it was hard to believe it, looking at him.

"We're leaving," Hiroshi told him. "I'm going to take you home. I'll carry you if I have to."

"I can damn well walk," Genichi countered, but Hiroshi still had to kneel on the bed in order to help Genichi to sit up. He was breathing hard with the effort that cost him and Hiroshi surveyed what he could see of Genichi underneath the parting robe.

"Is anything broken? Does it hurt to breathe?" he demanded, sliding his hand past the edge of the robe to lay a palm gently over the bruising along Genichi's side. His skin was hot, and he winced when Hiroshi touched him.

"No," he insisted. "No, it's fine. Nothing's broken." He flapped weakly at Hiroshi's arm and then let Hiroshi begin manoeuvring him off the bed.

"This time," said Shinagawa's guard darkly and Genichi threw him a sour look as he finally managed to get to his feet.

"What the fuck else am I supposed to do, Jou?" he said tiredly, leaning his weight on Hiroshi. "You know she'd only send someone to get me. Remember how well _that_ went, that time?"

"Or," Hiroshi suggested sharply, glaring at the bodyguard, "you could perhaps _protect_ him, if you're so concerned for his welfare."

The suggestion was met with silence, while Genichi and this Jou stared at each other, something passing between them that Hiroshi could not interpret. Then Genichi sighed again and patted Hiroshi softly on the shoulder.

"He's done as much as anyone can, Hiroshi."

"Fuck," Jou grated, turning away abruptly, but not fast enough to hide the frustration that twisted his features.

"It's okay, Jou," Genichi said gently, as if _Jou_ was the one who was bruised and bleeding and possibly concussed. "We talked about this. There's no other way."

"There is," Jou said grimly, turning his head to look at Genichi again, like there was something neither of them wanted to say.

Genichi shook his head. "Just get me the fuck out of here," he said, although Hiroshi wasn't entirely sure which of them he was addressing. "For now, that's all I really give a shit about."

"Get him dressed," Jou told Hiroshi shortly. "There's clothes for him in the wardrobe behind you. I'll go get your car."

++++

Jou did more than get the car, he accompanied them out to it. Hiroshi kept expecting to see other guards, but it was as if the estate was deserted. Then, when he had Genichi gently and carefully packed into the back seat, Jou gave him a thoughtful look and got in behind the wheel. Hiroshi stared at where he'd been standing for a few heartbeats, then climbed into the back seat with Genichi.

As soon as the car was moving, Hiroshi was glad he had. Genichi was drowsy with what Hiroshi hoped was pain medication and not a concussion, and was slumped in the seat beside him already starting nodding off before they even left the neighbourhood. The first corner they took caused him to fall sideways, and jerk awake, which made him gasp at whatever spike of discomfort the movement had caused.

Hiroshi eased himself over on the seat and reached over to pull Genichi against him.

"Lean on me," he told him quietly, and Genichi did with a sigh. Hiroshi wanted to do more, wanted to hold him and touch his hair, but even so small a thing as Genichi's head on his shoulder felt strangely good. He looked up, and in the rear-view mirror, Jou was looking at him. Hiroshi made himself hold his gaze and not move, as if in defiance. He wanted to tell Jou that he would protect Genichi, that this was never, ever going to happen again. He hoped Jou could see that in his face.

+++++

They got home and installed Genichi in his rooms. Mama Bo had his robe and his bed all laid out, had tea and water and a first aid kit sitting on a large lacquered platter waiting, as if she'd anticipated what he would need when he returned, and the idea that- that this happened often enough for her to know froze Hiroshi in horror for long enough that Jou appeared on Genichi's other side.

Genichi looked at the platter and then sighed again.

"Jou’ll help me," he told Hiroshi softly. "He's already patched up the worst of it so all I'm going to do is collapse into bed anyway. Go get some dinner. You haven't eaten almost all day."

Hiroshi opened his mouth to protest, realised Jou was watching him again, and closed it.

"Seriously," Genichi said, his voice a little firmer. "Go."

It was as much as Hiroshi deserved, he supposed, being exiled, his help refused.

The soup Mama Bo had ready in the kitchen when he reached it might have been delicious, but Hiroshi couldn't taste it. He was stuck fast in the contradictions within himself, because he would not have – _could not_ have – allowed Miura to assault Genichi. But his actions had brought Genichi harm, nevertheless. He didn’t know how to reconcile these things, and they pulled at him in opposite directions. Mama Bo, shuffling past him, patted him gently on the shoulder, as if she could see his conflict, and Hiroshi hunched a little more over his bowl, because it felt like forgiveness of some kind and he didn't want it.

He ate mechanically. Mama Bo put rice and tea in front of him after a while, and Hiroshi finished those too. When he didn’t move, she took the plates and went away, and came back a few minutes later and placed a sake set on the table in front of him. There were two cups. Hiroshi waited.

Eventually the door through to the house slid open and Jou stepped into the kitchen. He came to the table and sat down opposite Hiroshi and reached across to pick up the sake jug and poured Hiroshi a cup, and then himself, before setting the bottle down again. Hiroshi raised up his cup and drank, and then put it back down and reached for the bottle and poured them both another.

Jou didn’t speak until the third cup.

“He’s my half-brother,” he said finally, his voice soft and a little rough. Hiroshi didn’t look at him, didn’t say anything.

“Our father, well, he screwed around a lot. Maybe that isn’t so surprising. A lot of guys do, especially his generation. Like it was their God given right or something.” He didn’t sound like he particularly approved, although whether that was of his father or the fact in general, Hiroshi couldn’t really tell. “He never brought her home, Gen’s mother I mean. I never knew who she was. Don’t think anybody did. I always thought maybe she was important, somehow, or rich. I thought maybe he was in love with her, the way he never really was with my mother. I don’t know. He just came home one afternoon with this… this little, squalling bundle of bright red in his arms. He was so tiny, you know? So helpless, and beautiful and he smelled like cream and flowers and-“ He broke off and laughed, not exactly happily, but the look on his face, painful and unguarded; Hiroshi understood in that moment that Jou loved Genichi as much as it was possible to love another person, perhaps almost as much as Hiroshi had loved Kayoko. Hiroshi reached over and poured Jou another drink, emptying out the bottle. Jou took it and raised it in brief, sober thanks. “Needless to say,” he sighed, “Mother didn’t feel the same.”

Mama Bo appeared like a ghost at their side, wordlessly swapping out the empty sake jug for a fresh one before disappearing again.

“She hated him from the moment she laid eyes on him,” Jou told him after the housekeeper had gone again, his voice heavy, a little thick. “Maybe if I’d known, if I’d realised… I might have run away with him. But I didn’t know, at first. I just thought he was a quiet kid, growing up. And then Dad died. Cancer. Not long after that, the bruises started showing. He started… acting out. Causing fights, doing… drugs and then later, sex." He shrugged. "It's kind of hard to call it delinquency considering what our family does for a living, but he started to go wild. Off the rails. That's when I really understood." He looked up at Hiroshi, sober and sad. "What happened today, that’s not the worst she’s ever done to him. She tried to kill him once. He spent a fortnight in hospital, and for a long time after that, maybe a year or two, he wasn’t the same. I thought about poisoning her, a couple of times, then. Cutting the brake lines on the car, or something. Driving us both off a cliff. I used to have nightmares about it, where I’d have to go look in on her in the middle of the night to prove to myself I hadn’t already done it. But then her older sister died. She used to live in this house, you know. She liked Gen a lot. Used to say his heart was too big and that’s why he was always bleeding. Anyway, she left the place to him in her Will, and Gen moved in. It was another thing Shinagawa hated him for, leaving her maybe, or taking what she thought he had no right to. It made it worse in some ways, but I think if he'd stayed there any longer…" He didn't finish, but Hiroshi didn't need him to. "As long as they don't see each other, I suppose you could say the situation's tolerable.”

“And how often do they see each other?” Hiroshi asked quietly, and Jou blinked and drained his cup again. Hiroshi had lost count of how many they’d had. His skin felt overly warm, but his hands were cold, aching with it.

“About twice a year at the moment,” Jou shrugged. “Usually it’s civil enough. She hasn’t been like that in… a while.”

“Because she sold him to Kennosuke Miura to secure a deal with his father,” Hiroshi added tightly. “And I threw Miura out on his ear after breaking his nose.”

Jou snorted, like he couldn't help himself. “I would have liked to have seen that,” he mused. “That guy’s such a little prick.”

Hiroshi almost smiled himself. “Yes, that was my impression.”

“You’ve been here how long?” Jou asked, although it didn’t precisely sound like he didn’t know.

“Almost five months,” Hiroshi provided.

“Doing a good job, I hear.”

Hiroshi didn’t know, or wonder, where he had heard. “Clearly not good enough.”

He reached for the sake bottle again, mainly just to see if they'd emptied it, but the second his hand closed on it, Jou's large hand closed on his wrist, warm and firm and completely unthreatening. Hiroshi paused and looked up to find Jou's gaze settled intently on him.

"I don't care what you have to do," Jou said with quiet conviction, "but just… protect him, okay? I know you don't owe me anything, but just protect him."

Hiroshi stared at him for a moment. "Do you know what you're asking me?" he asked finally, quietly, and Jou's expression hardened in response, his hand tightening on Hiroshi's wrist briefly.

"No," he said finally. "But I'm asking anyway."

He let Hiroshi go, and then rose from his seat, walked over to Mama Bo and kissed her on the cheek gently, like she was his grandmother, and then he left.

Hiroshi sat at the table for a long moment after. Mama Bo didn't bring him any more sake, so eventually he got up and fetched it himself.

++++++

He might have been a little drunk when he finally left the kitchen, because he found himself at Genichi's door. It was open, although he wasn't entirely sure whether it had stood that way or he'd just let himself in. Genichi's bed was unmade, but Genichi wasn't in it; instead he was sitting outside on the edge of the veranda, facing out into the garden.

"You coming in," he asked after a moment, "or are you just going to stand there on the threshold all night?"

Hiroshi, perhaps due to the alcohol he'd consumed, but perhaps not, stepped into the room and walked over to where Genichi was sitting to stand and gaze out onto the garden as well. It was a beautiful night, warm, but not too warm. The sounds of traffic from the street beyond the walls of the estate were a constant, muted swell of white noise, like a distant ocean, and the city lights glittered through the trees like stars to reflect on the pond.

"I thought you'd be asleep," Hiroshi said finally, and beside him Genichi sighed.

"Thought I'd be asleep too," he agreed. "Jou's gone?"

"Some time ago." Hiroshi confirmed, and decided then that standing was a little too much effort and lowered himself carefully down to the mats next to Genichi to hang his feet over the edge of the deck. Genichi gave him a sharp look in the half-light.

"You're drunk," he realised, surprise in his voice.

"A little, perhaps," Hiroshi admitted. "Your… brother."

"Ah," Genichi intoned, as if he understood everything from just that one reference. "Mama Bo always did like him. She likes you too, you know."

Hiroshi didn't know what to say to that. He didn't know what to do in this situation. He should have handed in his resignation immediately, along with a finger as per the old traditions, but he liked it here, he liked Genichi, and he still didn't regret throwing Miura out on his ear. If he'd known what would happen as a result, he might have _only_ thrown out his ear without the rest of him attached.

"It wasn't your fault," Genichi said after a moment, quietly. “If it wasn’t because of Miura, then it would have been about something else, eventually.”

Jou had implied as much, but Hiroshi found that along with his sense of boundaries, his sense of decorum had left him as well.

“I don’t understand,” he said, abruptly, too familiar, too intrusive. He didn’t care. “I know she’s your mother, but how can you possibly let her-“

"Because she's my _mother_ , Hiroshi!" Genichi said suddenly, equally harsh. "All I've ever wanted is for her to-" He broke off, but Hiroshi could already see what he had been going to say. "I don't know why she doesn't, what I ever did. It's never good enough, _I'm_ not good enough. Sometimes, I think about it, you know? I think, if I… If I _died_ , would that finally make her happy, or maybe, maybe she'd be sorry, she'd regret- She'd-"

Hiroshi didn't know what to do now either, he only knew he wanted to make Genichi stop. He only knew the panic, the sheer unfiltered fear that gripped him at those words. He couldn't- He couldn't-

"Stop!" he grated, and unable to help himself, he turned and put his hand on Genichi's shoulder, and when Genichi drew in a shuddering gasp of interrupted emotion he felt as if it started some kind of landslide, the ground giving way beneath him so that he was falling. Suddenly the simple touch of his hand wasn't enough. He gripped and pulled so that Genichi was falling too and they met in the middle, awkwardly, Hiroshi's arms around Genichi's shoulders and Genichi's face buried in Hiroshi's neck.

"Don't-" Hiroshi began, and found that he was trembling too hard to continue for a moment, knew Genichi could feel it where his hands had inadvertently risen to clutch against Hiroshi's back, fingertips digging in in pain or protest, Hiroshi didn't know. "That is not- not something I will allow any more. If you'd wanted to do… that, you should never have hired me, and you know it."

Genichi was tense against him for perhaps the space of a heartbeat, two, and then he slumped in Hiroshi's arms like he was collapsing, clinging to Hiroshi and Hiroshi had to stop himself from holding him too tightly because it felt like the man had never been held in his life.

"I know," Genichi whispered, breath hot and shivering against Hiroshi's neck. "I know. I don't want to, Hiroshi. I want to live. I want to god damn _live_."

The relief, the relief for some reason was monumental, a feeling like a balloon swelling inside Hiroshi's chest, filling him and bracing him up, pressure and buoyancy together. His hands went from Genichi's shoulder blades, to his shoulders, to the sides of his head, and Hiroshi wanted to look at him, wanted to see his face, wanted to feel him warm and alive and _wanting_ to live, and-

Genichi shifted at his urging, turning his head, the soft warm, broken skin of his cheek dragging gently against Hiroshi's and then his mouth was brushing against Hiroshi's, softly, like he was afraid of the contact, of what he wanted, and Hiroshi couldn't bear to be that thing, yet another thing of fear and rejection and pain. He held Genichi's face more gently and turned into the kiss and Genichi made a brief sobbing sound against his lips, and then, oh, then.

Then it was gentle mouths and tongues and the taste of Genichi in his mouth and his shaking hands pressing Genichi's robe slowly apart at his shoulder so he could touch his skin, and Genichi's hands under his jacket, and then his dress shirt, hot brands tracing the muscles of his abdomen, his ribs, and then his back, pulling him closer, pulling him down as Genichi leaned back. Hiroshi went with him, still kissing, still tasting; the split skin at the side of his mouth, the bruises on his cheek, the taut moving line of his throat as he tipped his head back and pulled Hiroshi closer still.

"You're injured," Hiroshi reminded as he let himself be dragged gently down, but it wasn't nearly as much of an objection as it ought to have been. "You're my employer."

"Don't-" Genichi gasped, as Hiroshi's teeth nipped at the delicate, vulnerable skin at the base of his throat. "Don't care. It's okay. Hiroshi."

He said _Hiroshi_ like other people said _please._ Hiroshi didn't really need him to ask; he had no ability to stop what they were doing, no desire to. All his desire was focused on Genichi only, on the need to feel him alive underneath his touch. His trembling hands continued to part the robe, down to his navel, fingertips sweeping into the soft hair that trailed down and then when the sash made that impossible without stopping to undo it, Hiroshi just jumped it and kept going.

"Oh, fuck," Genichi breathed as Hiroshi peeled back the robe to expose Genichi's sex, hard and hot under Hiroshi's fingers as he touched him.

"Shh," Hiroshi murmured. "Just let me…"

He tasted clean and musky, and twitched strongly under Hiroshi's lips. His pubic hair tickled Hiroshi's nose. Hiroshi opened his mouth and slid him in, and sucked, and above him, Genichi made another muffled, wrenching sound.

"Shh," Hiroshi breathed again as he pulled back. "Just let me."

They were both quiet; Hiroshi slow and gentle and as thorough as he had ever learned to be, Genichi panting into a hand or an arm and pawing at Hiroshi's head and shoulders, lost and uncoordinated. Hiroshi couldn't stop touching him as he sucked – his stomach, the jut of his hipbones, the soft skin between his legs. Genichi whimpered then and spread his legs just slightly, and Hiroshi touched him there as well, fingers curling gently around his balls, fingertips pressing up behind them, rhythmically massaging, until Genichi was shifting into the motion and his thighs were trembling and the soft sounds escaping him were becoming high and frantic.

He came with a cut off moan and without much more warning than that, but Hiroshi didn't mind. And when he was done, he seemed to curl towards him and Hiroshi found himself in his arms again, Genichi buried in his embrace like Hiroshi could hide him from the world.

"Shh," Hiroshi said again, still quiet. "It's okay. Let's get you back into bed, yes?"

Genichi didn't object, and Hiroshi didn't mind that either. He had done this for himself, for reasons that had nothing at all to do with his own physical gratification. That could be dealt with later if he had to. He managed to extricate himself from Genichi's arms, and then reached over to pull his robe gently back into place before getting to his feet and reaching down to help Genichi to his. Genichi walked back to his bedding stiffly and painfully, like an old man, and Hiroshi made a mental note to bring him more pain killers.

"Don't," Genichi murmured, once Hiroshi had settled him back into bed, and his hand was fisting the leg of Hiroshi's trousers. "Don't leave me."

Hiroshi didn't know whether he meant now or ever, but Hiroshi had no intention of doing either.

"All right, I won't," he answered softly, and rose long enough to take off his shoes and his jacket and lay them down carefully, before laying himself down at Genichi's side. The futon wasn't quite big enough for the two of them, but Hiroshi didn't mind that either. He lay on his side and stroked his fingers across the side of Genichi's face until he fell asleep.

And then he got up again and put his shoes and his jacket back on, then he left Genichi and went to his room and fetched his gun.

++++++

It wasn't terribly hard to get back into the Shinagawa main residence. It was late, after all, almost three in the morning. He made his way through the quiet grounds, circumventing idle patrols, and then broke into the house and found what he was looking for by patiently working his way from room to room. It was perhaps almost four when he discovered the right room.

Shinagawa slept, perhaps surprisingly, in a sumptuous Western style bedroom quite unlike the rest of the house. It was in terrible taste, Hiroshi decided; grandiose and dramatic. Hiroshi however had no interest in that. There was only one reason he was here, and he was fairly certain Shinagawa would have felt secure enough in her personal power and the other security measures Hiroshi had already bypassed to not think she needed them here. Just like Okino, he thought, and Okino had known that he was coming.

She woke up when Hiroshi knelt on the mattress and put his gun under her chin, pointing it unerringly towards her brain stem; she woke up with a start.

"No," Hiroshi warned calmly, pressing the nozzle of the gun harder under her jaw, where it was bound to hurt, just to wake her up a little bit more. He wanted to do more than that, but this was not about him. "Don't scream. You'll be dead before you've even drawn enough breath."

She did draw a breath, but her eyes were narrow, calculating. They gleamed in the light coming in through the windows from outside. "You'll never leave here alive," she said after a moment. It sounded like a promise.

"Well," Hiroshi smiled, perhaps not pleasantly. "I got in alive. I'd say that makes my chances of doing the opposite quite good, don't you think?"

"What do you want?"

"I want," Hiroshi said, "for you to leave him alone. That's all."

Shinagawa's expression held confusion for just a moment. "Leave-"

"He loves you," Hiroshi continued. "Or believes he does. And he thinks if he's just good enough, if he sacrifices just enough of himself, you'll love him back. But we both know that will never be true, don't we, Shinagawa-san? So, from this point forward, you may make all the deals you like, but they will no longer involve him. He is no longer currency with which you may bargain."

Shinagawa - well, Hiroshi had not been under any illusions that a woman who ran the now largest mob in the south east was not a force to be reckoned with - laughed.

"While he lives under my roof and off my means, he is exactly that!" she countered, defiant, but Hiroshi only smiled. It likely wasn't a reassuring one.

"But it's not your roof," he said. "And his income is more independent than you've apparently bothered to notice. But, let us just say, for sake of argument, that you have newly discovered the one charitable bone in your body and that you will from this point forward leave him be. You may believe me or not as you see fit when I say there are very few things I am above in order to free him. I will destroy you, your empire, and everything you hold dear, carefully and systematically, and you will not be able to stop me."

"He doesn't know you're here, does he," she realised. "That you're threatening me, that-"

"Do you _think_ ," Hiroshi snarled, his gun suddenly, painfully forcing her head up and back. She gasped in undisguised pain, freezing instantly, and her eyes when he loomed over her to stare her in the face were wide, showing white. Hiroshi knew that look, remembered it well, and he could not mistake it. "That if you told him, he'd disavow me? That turning him away from me would hurt me? You're right. But it wouldn't _stop_ me. Do you _understand_? Not even if he hated me for it. I would sacrifice even that to protect him."

"Why?" Shinagawa gasped.

"Because this is how I love, Shinagawa-san. It's uglier by far than any hate you could ever hold. Okino understood that, before he died. You will too, unless you leave him alone."

She was silent for a moment, only the rapid beat of her breath disturbing the silence of the room. Into that silence, Hiroshi clicked the safety on the gun off.

"Yes, all right!" she grated. "Yes, I will leave him be. But keep him away from me. I don't want to ever see his face again, I don't-"

It was all the agreement Hiroshi needed. He put his hand around her throat, under the gun, and began to squeeze. When she began to fight him, he put the gun down and used his other hand too. She fought in truth then, first attempting to claw him, his face - which she couldn't quite reach as he lifted himself higher and used his weight to press her into the mattress – and then his arms, kicking and writhing under his weight. He ignored her, until her movements lost much of their strength. It didn't take long after that until her hands fell away from him and she slumped unconscious beneath him.

It would have been easy, so easy, to just keep squeezing. Not his preferred method of dispatch, since he'd left the Izumokai to investigate what had happened to Kayoko, but he might have made an exception for Shinagawa.

Sadly however, they had made a pact. Hiroshi would hold to that as long as Shinagawa did. Or he'd be back. It was as simple as that. He climbed off the bed and holstered his gun, and then paused to rearrange her into a more natural repose, adjusting her robe and the bedding without touching more of her skin than he had to, in case someone looked in on her while she was still unconscious. Then he slipped out of her room and closed the door behind him.

He got as far as the end corridor, turning right in order to head back the way he'd come, when he realised, hair standing up on the back of his neck, that someone was behind him, and it was no more than a second after that that he realised he should be dead, and wasn’t. He turned.

Genichi’s half-brother was standing at the other end of the hall. Hiroshi stared at him and waited. He’d known that coming here was a risk, that it might not be possible to return to Genichi if things went badly although there had been no question he would try. But Jou didn’t make a move for his gun, or the knife Hiroshi knew he kept under his jacket. He just stared back. And then he stepped back against the wall and fixed his gaze on the door opposite. Hiroshi hesitated a moment, but when Jou didn't move, he thought perhaps he understood.

He was almost at the end of the hall, within Jou’s reach, when Jou spoke.

"I didn't expect to see you again this soon," he said, almost conversationally. "Did you kill her?" His face was blank. Hiroshi paused. He had no idea whether he was dreading the answer, or dreading the relief he would feel when he heard it.

"No," he told him finally. "This was a warning."

He didn't say it would be the only one, but perhaps Jou understood, for he said, "I hear Boss Okino didn't even get that."

"No," Hiroshi agreed quietly. "He didn't."

"Exit through the north door, past the old smokehouse," Jou told him abruptly. "The grounds are higher at the fence line there and the trees are too thick for the cameras to see anything. The guards are going to be busy with a prowler at the South entrance in about five minutes. Someone from one of the other groups is always trying to get in here and prove something. You'd think they'd learn."

"People so rarely do,” Hiroshi agreed mildly, and then hesitated. “I would say I hope not to see you again, but I think that Genichi would appreciate a visit, from time to time, if you could find it in your heart to come."

Silence for a moment, and then Jou said, "I think I could, Kurame-san. Thank you."

Hiroshi nodded, and left.

++++

It was morning by the time Hiroshi got back to the house. He didn't bother to stop in his own rooms but went straight to Genichi's. Early morning sunlight was slanting through the still open screens and painting the mats a couple of feet from where Genichi lay, and for a moment, Hiroshi just stopped to watch him. His hair against the pillow was a frightful tangle of red, and he looked like he'd moved about a lot and had ended up strewn across the futon, half on and half off. It made Hiroshi smile. He was like a child.

He came into the room and closed the door behind him, and then put his gun on the mat above Genichi's pillow and peeled his clothes from his body, dropping them carelessly to the floor. He’d pick them up later, of course, but for now, there was only Genichi, his warm skin and strong limbs and the way his body seemed to mould itself to Hiroshi’s in sleep the second they came into contact. It made Hiroshi feel hollow, left him wanting to be filled.

“Mmph." Genichi stirred, and turned towards him to let Hiroshi gather him up. "You're cold. Where were you?”

 “I just had some errands to run,” Hiroshi said, reaching to smooth Genichi’s hair away from his face. It was only an excuse to touch him further, not that he really seemed to need it.

“In the middle of the night,” Genichi said. “Right.”

"I would have thought you'd sleep for a while yet," Hiroshi sighed, as Genichi's hands planed up and down the skin of his back. "How are you feeling?"

"Like hell," Genichi muttered. "That doesn't mean I want you to go anywhere."

"I wasn't," Hiroshi told him, snuggling down against him and closing his eyes, somehow content, despite everything. "I have no intention to."

"Good," Genichi said shortly and moved to kiss him blindly. Hiroshi kissed him back, even though the first taste of him reminded Hiroshi of what they'd done before, of how much more he wanted to do, and of how Genichi was in no way ready for such activities even if he had been willing.

Well, the question of his willingness wasn't an issue, Hiroshi realised a moment later as Genichi pressed close and Hiroshi felt his bare thigh as well as his erection pressing against Hiroshi's.

"This is probably a bad idea," Hiroshi murmured between kisses, and thought about removing his hand from Genichi's ass.

"You can be gentle," Genichi suggested, a smile in his voice as he mouthed at Hiroshi's shoulder. "I'm way tougher than I look."

"No," Hiroshi corrected softly, "I don't mean that, although I'm still worried about your ribs. I mean you probably shouldn't get involved with me. I told you I'd bring you nothing but trouble."

Genichi stopped what he was doing – disappointingly – and leaned back to look in Hiroshi's face. He wasn't smiling.

"We talked about this," he reminded, a little impatiently. "The trouble was mine."

" _More_ trouble, then," Hiroshi amended. "I think I might be more than a little crazy."

Genichi didn't make some cheap joke about being crazy about _him_ , although that would have been true also; he just snorted.

“That doesn’t count as a tender of resignation, you know.”

“No,” Hiroshi agreed. “Normally that’s given in writing.”

“Damn right it is,” Genichi grunted. “And if I see anything from you in writing, I’m tearing it up without reading it; fair warning. So, will you just shut the fuck up for now and kiss me? We can worry about who's got more trouble later. Way later."

"All right," Hiroshi agreed, and leaned over to bite at Genichi's throat, perhaps the only place that wasn't yet marked by any kind of bruise. "You're the boss, after all."

++++

EPILOGUE

It took a week for the worst of the bruises to heal. Hiroshi spent the down time while Genichi wasn't taking calls or seeing people to start arranging the household business affairs more to his liking. It would be some time still before Genichi could consider himself well and truly independent, but Hiroshi began laying the ground work. He would have to break it to Genichi gently, he supposed, the fact that Genichi would be for all intents and purposes running a completely new group, one whose profits relied less and less on the more usual undertakings most small-time groups were known for, but he was sure in the long run Genichi would see the advantages.

Almost a week to the day, one of the household security staff buzzed him that he had a visitor, a Genta Shimura. Hiroshi had him let in and arranged to meet him in the tea house away from the main building. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted Genta to see Genichi yet, although he supposed it wasn't exactly something he could prevent forever.

"Nice," Genta said, looking around as he ducked in through the entrance and found Hiroshi waiting for him with tea already laid out and ready to serve. "How's Gen-san doing?"

Hiroshi waited until Genta was seated and his tea poured before answering.

"Well, thank you. May I ask why you're asking?"

Genta looked at him strangely then, half smiling. "I don't know," he said, shrugging, although it seemed like a lie. He turned and reached into the satchel he was carrying, and retrieved from it a small package wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, and held it out to Hiroshi. "Shi-chan always sends me round with something when he's not well. I think he likes him, and to be honest Shi-chan doesn't really like a lot of people, so."

Hiroshi frowned and took it. It smelled bitter and earthy, like herbs.

"Thank you," he said. "Please give Shichiro-san my regards."

"Oh," Genta said, putting his cup down after a quick mouthful. "And this is for you." He reached into his satchel and pulled out another package, a sealed manilla envelope this time. "Shi-chan said to tell Gen-san this one's actually _pro bono_ , whatever that means."

"It means, for the public good," Hiroshi supplied distractedly as he carefully took the envelope. "What is this?"

"Hey, I'm just the messenger," Genta said, and picked up his cup again. "You make really good tea, Kurame-san," he told him and sighed deeply. "Really good. You should come back to the shop some time. I think you'd really like our _Xi Hu Longjing_. I've got some _Gyokuro_ you should try too. Actually, I'll bring you some next time I come."

"Thank you," Hiroshi said, but he wasn't really paying attention. He was instead staring at the contents of the envelope. It was a police report. It had Kayoko's photo on the front page.

Hiroshi's hand started to shake.

"Yeah," Genta sighed again. "Really good tea." He put his cup down and Hiroshi shifted and blinked up at him. He had no idea how long he'd been sitting there, staring at the photo, but Genta was finished. He'd eaten both _mochi_ that had been sitting on the mats between them as well.

"I gotta get back, Kurame-san," Genta was saying. "Sorry to just drink and leave. Shi-chan told me not to hang about. Said you'd still be a little territorial, again whatever that means, but he said he'll see you both next week though. Have a really nice day. Tell Gen-san I said hi."

And with that, Genta was gone. Hiroshi stared after him for a moment, at the empty tea house doorway, and then he closed the file he'd been given, scooped up Genichi's gift and returned to the main house. Genichi was eventually found in the media room, folded up on the sofa in the onesie he'd taken to wearing about the place, just, Hiroshi suspected, to annoy him, playing GTA5.

"Hey," he said when Hiroshi appeared and sat down beside him. "Huh." He leaned over towards Hiroshi without taking his eyes off the enormous television screen and sniffed the air. "You smell like _matcha_. Did we have guests or something?"

Hiroshi wasn't sure whether he was impressed or annoyed at his seemingly off-hand observation.

"Genta-kun was here, and you know it," he said, because he'd already discovered long ago that Genichi knew pretty much everything that went on in the house even if he didn't always act like he did. "He brought you this."

Genichi glanced down at the package Hiroshi was holding out for him, and abruptly paused the game in mid shoot-out.

"Aw, hell," he sighed, looking disgruntled. "Shichiro's so going to give me a serving the next time he sees me."

"Do tell," Hiroshi said mildly and handed the package over. "He also gave me this." He handed the file to Genichi too. "Said, that this time it was _pro bono_."

Genichi opened the file and looked at it.

"It's my sister's case file," Hiroshi explained unnecessarily as Genichi read. "The police got involved after she killed herself, due to my association with the Izumokai, but with no one talking, there was no one to charge. The coroner ruled against her death as suspicious not long after that."

"Ah," Genichi agreed vaguely.

"The thing is," Hiroshi continued. "This isn't that file. This names the men who were involved and lists their subsequent deaths as either accidental or as a result of gang conflict with no suspects or leads. The fire that levelled Okino's estate and killed the people in it is ruled an accident. Faulty electricals. The residents died of smoke inhalation long before the fire reached them."

"Yeah," Genichi said quietly.

"Who is Shinichiro, Genichi-san? How did he do this? And do you trust him?"

Genichi closed the file and looked levelly at Hiroshi and said, "Absolutely."

Hiroshi gazed back, and then he nodded. "And this is what you went to see him about, that day." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah," Genichi said.

"Why?"

Genichi blinked. "Because you're a twenty hand, Hiroshi," he said finally. "Just like me. It's what it means, ya-ku-za. Eight, nine, three. A losing hand in _hana-fuda_. Maybe that's not really true for everyone anymore, but people like you and me, I think we were born to lose, and Shichiro; sometimes Shichiro can… stack the odds a little. I wanted that for one of us at least. For you. I'm sorry if you don't like it, I just-" He stopped, his mouth open against the fingers Hiroshi was brushing against his lips.

"It's fine," Hiroshi told him softly, strangely happy, like Genichi had given him something far more precious than he could possibly understand. "It's what I would do for you too."

It was what he was doing for Genichi, whether Genichi knew it or not. He supposed that made them even.

"Yeah?" Genichi breathed, smiling a little against Hiroshi's fingertips.

"Yes."

"I can think of something else we could do for each other," he said, his smile easing into a leer so pronounced it made Hiroshi laugh. Genichi even wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. "I'm all better now, after all."

"Now?" Hiroshi laughed. "It's the middle of the day. And we'll give Mama Bo a heart attack when she comes to fetch us for lunch."

"Hiroshi," Genichi chided, and reached for him. "If Mama Bo was prone to heart attacks, I would have given her one long before now."

Hiroshi decided he didn't want to hear anything more about that, and applied himself to keeping Genichi from uttering anything more complex than single syllable words for quite some time after. At one point they accidentally rolled on Genichi's controller and unpaused his game, but neither of them noticed his character up against the wall and going down in a hail of bullets. Genichi could just reset it later anyway. After all, wasn't that what you did when you found yourself with a losing hand?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the LJ [weissvsaiyuki June/July battle](http://www.http://weissvsaiyuki.livejournal.com/).
> 
> I have been writing this thing like _forever_. It started based on another prompt so long ago I have forgotten the details, although not the source (never the source), and while it fits the theme, I'm less happy with the intensity of said fit. That's probably my biggest self-criticism this time out. I think I just wanted it to be… more. 
> 
> It's also (and I've whined at a friend about this already) so far from canon I'm not entirely sure it's recognisable any more. That being said, I did enjoy trying to write to the 'genre' – not with how much success I managed it, but I've very much enjoyed certain aspects of it at least. I've also enjoyed the environmental detail I've put in. I don't think I've ever written with a conscious focus on space before; usually I just provide the minimum detail necessary? Or think I do.
> 
> Anyway, sorry to waffle on. I always like to use this space to dump a bit of stream of consciousness about my process in general. It keeps me learning, when I can debrief a bit at the end.


End file.
